The present disclosure relates to a vehicle control device that provides information on driving assistance, and automatic traveling control, which are based on a traveling history that has been learned.
A vehicle control device that performs driving assistance by learning the traveling history of a vehicle has been proposed in recent years. This type of control device sometimes provides information on the driving assistance in accordance with the contents of the driving assistance before controlling the vehicle based on, for example, the traveling history. Likewise, this type of control device sometimes provides information on the driving assistance when prompting a vehicle occupant to perform a predetermined driving operation based on the traveling history.
A device that displays control-pre-notice information that notifies driving assistance control together with road information in advance is known as a device that provides information on driving assistance (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-237290, for example). This device stores learning information that includes pedal depression information of, for example, an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal. Based on the learning information, this device divides an area in which a host vehicle is traveling into a not-yet-learned zone, an already-learned and non-automatic zone, and distinguishably displays the divided zones on, for example, a display screen. Additionally, when needed, operation advice, such as “Accelerator Off”, is displayed in addition to displaying those zones.
Even in one zone to be learned, there is a case in which learning situations will also be different from each other if the traveling direction in the zone is different. However, the aforementioned device does not take into consideration the fact that the vehicle occupant is provided with information on a learning situation according to the traveling direction of the vehicle, and hence the aforementioned device leaves room to improve an information providing function serving as that of a device that performs the driving assistance and the automatic traveling control, of the vehicle based on a learned traveling history.
An objective of the present disclosure is to more appropriately provide a vehicle occupant with information on situations of learning in accordance with the traveling direction of a vehicle.